Tibetans march to protest authorities’ plans to demolish their property near Qinghai Lake, June 23, 2016. (Photo courtesy: RFA)

(TibetanReview.net, Jun25, 2016) – Chinese police on Jun 23 attacked a group of Tibetans in Chabcha (Chinese: Gonghe) County of Qinghai Province who were protesting against a plan to destroy their shops, guesthouses, and homes located on a scenic stretch of the Qinghai Lake, leaving at least seriously injured, reported Radio Free Asia (Washington) Jun 23.

The report cited a local source as saying that two days earlier, local authorities had ordered Tibetans running small businesses in the Telnak Township area to demolish their shops, guest houses, and homes and leave the area. But the Tibetans, who had invested large sums of money in them, protested.

Several hundred business owners, carrying a banner reading “We Need to Eat, We Need to Survive”, marched in protest along the road that circles the lake. However, later in the afternoon, the head of the county arrived with about 30 police officers, and they beat up eight Tibetans who belonged to the township’s Karla and Choeje villages, the report said. Some of them were reported to have received serious head and leg injuries.

A similar development had taken place earlier in other towns nearby, with the authorities tearing down what they called “illegal structures” built by Tibetans to cater to tourists visiting the lake each year.

The report cited local sources as saying hundreds of such structures had been demolished in those areas recent months.